d with a paper of written instructions how they were to travel
in point of direction from hence to this fancied paradise, or to China.
This paper of directions will warrant my suspicion that some wicked and
disaffected person or persons lurk somewhere in this colony, and I have
done all in my power to discover them, but hitherto without success.
Having received early information of the intention of this party, who
were said to have increased to about sixty, I planted a party of armed
constables, on whose vigilance I could depend, and they secured a gang
of these Defenders of about twenty and brought them to prison. The next
day I spoke to them, but observing a considerable degree of obstinacy
and ignorance about them, I conceived there could be no better argument
used to convince them of their misconduct than a severe corporal
punishment, which was inflicted, and they have since been strictly
looked after at their work. Some of those fellows had been provided with
a figure of a compass drawn upon paper which, with written instructions,
was to have assisted them as their guide. The ignorance of these deluded
people, my Lord, would scarcely be credited if such positive proof of it
were not before us, and yet (which seems to imply a kind of
contradiction) it is extraordinary with what art and cunning they form
their horrible plans of wickedness and villainy.

In their schemes of desertion from the colony, their own death, if they
succeed in getting away, is inevitable; but their minds have been worked
up to such a pitch of folly, rashness, and absurdity, that nothing but
experience will convince them; if we suffer them to escape into the
country they are lost, not only to us but to the world, for perish they
must.

For the sake, therefore, of humanity, and a strong desire to save these
men, worthless as they are, from impending death, I ordered four of the
strongest and hardiest of their numbers to be selected by the people
themselves, and to prepare for a journey of discovery for the
satisfaction of their associates, in order that they might have an
opportunity of relating upon their return whatever they saw and met
with. I had, farther, for the safety and preservation of those four,
directed three people, long accustomed to the woods, and acquainted with
some of the mountain savages, to accompany them; these men had also a
little knowledge of the language of the savages, from having lived some
months amongst them, and t